UPDATE: Whole Foods opening second store in Sarasota

Whole Foods Market announced it will open a second grocery store in Sarasota this year.
The new store in Sarasota is one of eight supermarkets Whole Foods is opening in the U.S. and Canada in 2015, executives said during the company’s first quarter earnings report Friday.
The 40,000-square-foot grocery store will open at the southwest corner of University Parkway and Honore Avenue, not farm from Interstate 75 and the Mall at University Town Center, and will anchor a new shopping plaza that has yet to be built.
It will likely open within 18 months to two years from now.
The Austin-based high end, organic grocery chain operates one store in the Southwest Florida region on First Street in downtown Sarasota. Casto Lifestyle Properties, a Lakewood Ranch-based commercial real estate firm, built the downtown Whole Foods Market Center/100 Central retail and condominium complex in downtown Sarasota in 2004.
“Ever since we first came to Sarasota in 2004 we’ve had nothing but positive feedback from the community and the market is strong enough for a second location,” said Juan Nuñez, regional president for Whole Foods Market Florida region. “Our current location services the downtown area, and our second Sarasota store will attract shoppers off the highway and the retail area that’s expanding off of I-75.”
SJ Collins Enterprises, an Atlanta-based retail developer, is behind the new shopping plaza coming to the University Park region . Whole Foods will anchor the center, though the developer plans to add restaurants and other soft goods storefronts.
“Whole Foods thought that there was too much traffic congestion in the Benderson property for every day use,” said Jeff Garrison, a partner with the Georgia real estate firm.
Benderson Development proposed a plan for an additional 600,000 square feet of retail space off University Parkway near its brand new 880,000-square-foot mall. The addition, which hasn’t been approved by Sarasota County and the state yet, would bring the local developer’s total retail footprint surrounding the mall and west of Lakewood Ranch to 2.58 million square feet of commercial development.
Whole Foods Market continues to expand aggressively in the country with 116 stores in development right now, despite some faltering sales in recent years. The company is also expanding into Canada with three new stores this year.
The first quarter earnings report shows that Whole Foods’ sales are steady. During the first quarter, total sales increased by 10 percent to $4.67 billion and same-store sales rose by 4.5 percent.
The upscale grocery chain known for its high prices has actively tried to drop prices to better compete with other brands that offer discount prices.
Whole Foods is listed as No. 19 on trade firm, Supermarket News’, list of the top 75 retailers in 2014. Whole Foods made the top 20 with $12.9 billion in annual sales
Other new Whole Foods locations scheduled to open this year include Baltimore, Bellingham, Wash., Bridgewater, N.J., Charlotte, N.C., Chicago, Mandeville, La., and Toledo, Ohio. Whole Foods operates 408 stores across the U.S.

Photo By Ken Blevins/StarNew Media

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